Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple

Overview

Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple form a Buddhist site on Mount Toham near Gyeongju, South Korea, inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Bulguksa is an active temple of Korean Buddhism where monks live and hold daily services. Seokguram, an artificial granite grotto higher on the mountain, houses a monumental statue of the Buddha facing the East Sea.

Present

Bulguksa is a head temple of the Jogye Order, the largest order of Korean Buddhism, and monks live, train, and hold daily services there. Seokguram is a hermitage administered as part of the Bulguksa temple complex, located about three kilometers away on the upper slopes of Mount Toham. The grotto's interior is protected behind a glass screen, installed after 20th-century conservation work to control humidity that threatened the sculptures. Both sites are designated National Treasures of South Korea. In 1995 UNESCO designated Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple a World Heritage Site.

Religious Significance

Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple were built as expressions of Buddhism under the Silla kingdom, which ruled southeastern Korea and, from 668 CE, most of the Korean Peninsula, and which had adopted Buddhism as its state religion. The name Bulguksa means "Temple of the Buddha Land," and the complex was designed to represent the Buddhist paradise in earthly form. Korean Buddhist tradition holds that the statesman Kim Daeseong built Bulguksa in honor of his parents in his present life and Seokguram in honor of his parents from a former life, an account rooted in the Buddhist teaching of rebirth.

The Buddha statue in Seokguram is seated with his right hand touching the earth, a gesture Buddhists associate with the moment of the Buddha's enlightenment. The grotto faces east over the sea, and the statue meets the rising sun. Buddhists traditionally understand the path from Bulguksa up the mountain to the grotto as a symbolic journey toward enlightenment. Worship continues at Bulguksa, and Buddhists visit Seokguram in veneration of the Buddha image.

History & Structure

Construction of Bulguksa and Seokguram began in 751 CE under the direction of Kim Daeseong, chief minister of the Silla kingdom, and was completed by the royal court in 774 after his death. Seokguram is an artificial grotto built of granite, consisting of an antechamber, a corridor, and a domed circular chamber assembled from more than 360 stone slabs. The seated Buddha inside is 3.5 meters tall on a lotus pedestal, surrounded by wall reliefs of bodhisattvas (enlightened beings who assist others), disciples, and guardian figures. Bulguksa consists of wooden halls on raised stone terraces, approached by stone stairway bridges, with two stone pagodas, Dabotap and Seokgatap, in the main courtyard. The temple's wooden buildings burned during the Japanese invasions of Korea in the 1590s and were rebuilt in stages, with a major restoration completed between 1969 and 1973. Seokguram was restored in the 20th century. In 1995 UNESCO designated the two sites a World Heritage Site.

Additional Resources

• UNESCO: Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple